Finally moving in. Nothing seems to be fun. Tomorrow will be my first day working as a patroller. A-ma-zing indeed. I, Brice Rockwell, have been wondering why I had ever thought that being a cop would be exciting, challenging or even desirable at all.

Modern small towns without cultural identity like Red Creek are boring to death, in my humble opinion. I would not be falling asleep if anybody, just anybody, suddenly showed up to make me change my mind. Besides the semi-rural environment, lots of trees, pollen and my momentary allergies, there is no such thing as a real threat to the general population. That is all I can say about this terrible place.

Yeah, you might be right if you would ever tell me that this forgotten town is doing me a favor. Hell, it will let me pay my bills so I guess I should be grateful and thank Amelia Hiss for telling me about enrolling in the police academy.

Hell, I better be honest with you right now. I do hate Amelia. That female is nothing but a true bratty girl, and yet, she managed to become a cop about the same time I did. I cannot even fathom how it is possible for such a disastrous brunette to get a job as an officer.

You could say she is sort of high breasted and that would be pretty much all the good things you can say about her. Well, perhaps I should also admit that I have pinched her buttocks once and they felt slightly good, full of muscles but still decent. Yet, she is not as tall as I expected when my friend Randolph told me about her. It got to be her hazel eyes what caught me off guard soon after meeting her that fateful evening in the closest big city…

Perhaps I should have listened to Randolph’s advice and not ever sleep with her. Yes, you are right. It is too late for your servitor. Not long after that kind of blind date, I spent a whole weekend at a wooden cabin lost in the midst of the wilderness. Guess who was my roommate there. And I loved hugging her in the evening while we were sitting on the porch, listening to the wind waving the treetops and also some owl. Perhaps one of them was waiting for a mate to join him!

At the same time I got to add that it was better than pretending to be a true Jägermeister that could take down lots of bears and drink whole bottles of such a drink at night. Alone. Full of bitterness. So I had to invite her no matter what my friend would tell me next week after learning all about it. She and her smooth skin got to be a lot better than listening to those nasty crickets and their unnerving melody all night long, right?

Some curious side note, Amelia certainly loves hunting. That freaky brunette even brought along her very own rifle! I guess she is not as bad as I first thought. Fine, she does not mean burping if she ever feels the need…

Wait a second… My apartment’s key is not working, the door will not open no matter what I do. Is the lock broken? After we both spent hours looking for such a place I seriously doubt we had ever missed such a detail. Now that I think about it, there was no sign that the landlady would not take care of the repairs. In fact, she was busy waiting for a repairman to show up at any time to fix something on the next floor.

No, this is different. The lock’s brand does not match my keys’ at all. They even sport totally different logos! Darn landlady! That woman should have told me about any recent housebreaking events in the neighborhood, yet, she conveniently changed the topic whenever we could get close to such sensitive issues.

I am a cop, ain’t I? What am I waiting for? Do I really need some stupid backup only to deal with some insignificant crook? Of course not! As a trained officer I can deal and will certainly deal with this kind of situations at any moment.

Right, I ended up paying that darn lady a visit to ask her about the lock. Stop it! Do not ever think I am a coward! It just happens that I had no firearm. Even if I ever did, it would have remained in my apartment for I was off duty after all. She got to answer a few questions or else…

“No, sir!” Julia the landlady told me. “Why would I ever replace your lock out of the blue? The only thing I could promise you would be to call SFJ to come down and do the repairs for you.”

You might not know this but the repairman I have told you about a while ago is called SFJ by pretty much everybody around. It stands for Slick Fingers Jack. Yeah, I know. It is a terrible nickname and I would deeply hate the guy that came up with such a nonsense in the first place.

What makes it interesting is that I got a call that abruptly interrupted my improvised interrogatory. It got to be important or somebody is going to die tonight.

“Man, I finally recalled that guy’s name!” my contact Hugh asserted. “It’s Slick Fingers Jack. He’s the guy that had spent ten years in prison for the robbery. People say he’s truly reformed, still, I can’t buy that story at all. There’s always something fishy about that lowlife.”

I could not help myself but make an astounding revelation then, “Great, Hugh! Now guess who’s the landlady’s henchman in charge of all the repairs at my building.”

“Huh? Brice, you’re kidding me, right?” Hugh inquired of me.

“By the way, you might wanna also know that my lock has been replaced without notice while I was buying some groceries.”

“Oh man! I’ve told you to stop drinking that s-” he complained before I could interrupt him.

“So what if I drink some birch beer once in a while, man?” I asked him in response.

“Fine. Since you’re a cop I suppose you don’t feel like calling some colleagues to lend you a hand there” he correctly guessed at that moment.

“See ya, Hugh! Gotta go break some darn bones and be sure I’ll enjoy it” I simply confessed over the phone.

“No matter what you say, I’ll make sure you get some decent backup in a timely fashion, Brice” my wannabe best friend let me know before hanging up.

Climbing up the stairs seemed to be a tedious task. That lowlife deserved to be slashed like Jason’s victims! How dare he carelessly break into a cop’s apartment!? It got to be the most heinous crime in human history ever! He is gonna pay for what he has done. And that bastard will lose all fingers and toes in the process or I will stop calling myself Brice the patroller forever.

While getting close to the brown door, I was feeling itchy all of sudden. Hmph. There was a reason behind it after all. The door is now partially open. He could have run away with ease while I was distracted by that corrupt landlady and my unexpected phone call. We will see.

I stuck to the wall like a fly and picked the best moment to storm into my own apartment.

How disappointing! There was nobody but a little girl.

“So my cute intruder, what’s your name?” I questioned her in no time.

The kiddo replied with a smirk on her darn face, “They call me Melanie, old man.”

How dare such a little kid tell me I am an old man!? ME!? And old man? Damn it! I am just a young cop!

Right, Melanie was there in the previous chapter, right? I really hate to recapitulate even a single event of that day when everything seemed to go wrong for no good reason. You know, I want to be brutally honest with you now. She is the incarnation of all troublemakers that have ever lived in the past century!


Her dark brown hair did not warm my heart at all, neither did her insolent eyes. It surely looked as if it would be a very long afternoon. No, I do not even want to include that evening here, but I guess I should tell you something to let you understand my predicament. Don’t you agree with me on this very topic, guys?


That troublesome Melanie kiddo was not the person I was looking for, she is just about ten or eleven. It was self evident she did not change my lock while I was away. Someone else did so I clearly knew what I had to do next. And nope, that did not include a call to my future colleagues. My plan was to contact her parents at once.


When I was taking a look at my cellphone screen, she ran fast like a demon girl. There was almost no way I could ever listen to her steps. Light Feet Mel could be a real pickpocket for I did not even feel the sensation that the device had left my hand till my eyes told me that it already was out of my reach. That youngster rat was already tapping on it like a bee biting its poor victim!


I cannot forget how her agility did not prevent her from breaking my almost brand new lamp that Amelia Hiss had bought for me days before we went to that good old cabin. It is going to get ugly whenever she makes her comeback…


By the way, Melanie likes to play tetris or the like if I recall clearly. True, she also likes to come up with weird words every so often or so says the other stupid videogame she got hooked onto. And that made her complain about its unfair rules as well.


Obviously, she could not stay in my apartment. I was in need of making up any sort of excuses that could allow me to kick her out for good. Guess what I did next? This silly mind of mine got empty so my only choice left was the bare truth.


“As an adult, I can’t let you stay here” I explained it to her. “People will think there’s something fishy going on here and I don’t wanna get in trouble. Tomorrow I will start patrolling the streets and I’ve got no time for babysitting any kiddos around here. So go away, now!”


Hey! You did not ever believe that crappy speech of mine was very convincing, did you? Nor did she for sure. Melanie only pretended to ditch my phone by placing it on my wooden table and leave my apartment when she had actually planned to turn around and go hide in my bathroom without warning. At that point I wound up realizing that it would be a long day for both of us.


I should have been extremely pleased with the fact that I hade gotten my silver cellphone back, yet, it started ringing. The landlady was trying to reach me as soon as possible. Since I had nothing better to do then, I soon answered it.


“My goodness!” she shouted. “Something makes me feel like my little daughter gotta be the very same intruder you were talking about just a while ago. I’m really sorry for that. You must understand she’s going through a tough situation right now.”


“Yeah, it’s so tough that she’s broken my lamp, has already stolen my phone once only to soon forget all about it and play silly games like hiding in my bathroom” I informed her right away.


“My poor little girl!” Julia cried out loud. “Please forgive her. She’s been neglected by her father ever since she was a very cute baby girl. Now that there’s another young male around, she gotta be thinking you’re some kind of elder brother to her.”


OK, that stubborn girl is a tiny victim. She is… her daughter!? Just wait a moment! Last month, if I remember clearly at all, I had paid her a visit and checked out the apartment. I do not recall seeing a single kid running around at home or doing her homework or anything the like. There were no toys or dolls or teddy bears or any other signs of a small kid living there. Who is Melanie? Where does she come from anyway?




For convenience sake or some badly needed clarification, I will skip the rest of that fateful day and let you know what happened many days after those crazy events. This means I am about to jump to earlier this week where the next section of her story resumes, non chronologically I might say now. Later on I could go back to that intrusion and finish explaining her dire situation to you, guys.


Oh well. I have been fighting crime for the last couple of months and let me tell you that I had not seen anything like that. A male crossed the street while listening to his music on his cellphone. How could a middle aged guy be so disrespectful? People like him do not know how worthy a single life actually is.


“Units 31 and 46, please respond a disturbance at West Alamo Street” the dispatcher uttered all of sudden. “Assault in progress. Female in her eighties out of control. I repeat, assault in progress.”


Yes, you are right. I am part of unit 46 indeed and for some mysterious reason I knew for certain that her target is the same thief that reportedly attacked elderly people for the last five days. I was glad to hear that we have finally located the darn thief. How dare him attack a eighty five year old woman!? Does he not care about the poor woman’s fragile condition? It is unforgivable in my humble opinion as a mere patroller.


My partner turned left instead of right to avoid going to the crime scene. I really thought he had gone insane for not doing his job of protecting the people that pays our wages with their very own taxes. As an officer I was in need of reporting him at all cost.


“Fine. Now that we’ve arrived to this splendid café, we better take a cup of coffee and eat some donuts for the meanwhile” officer Khomyak told me barefacedly.


“You’re not expecting me, a newcomer, to sit around and wait for it to end any time soon, right?” I had to ask the Russian guy. “We’ve got a job to do and I’m planning to run all the way back to the scene if deemed necessary.”


“Don’t waste your time catching lowlifes like him!” my colleague gave me his so called sound advice as an oldtimer.


“We got one job and if we don’t do that, who will ever believe in us anymore?” I furiously retorted in no time.


He unexpectedly laughed at me while grabbing his belly as if I were a real comedian of sorts. I started suspecting that my partner had to be some corrupt police man that would become a terrible influence for me if I did not do anything about him in the next couple of days or weeks.


“Come on! Don’t overreact, young boy!” the obese cop shouted as if nothing had ever happened.


Imagine for a brief moment how upset I got to be back then and even so your imagination would fall short indeed. Especially if I were to tell you that we all got an unexpected visitor there.


“Uncle Carlo!” the cashier greeted him in the blink of an eye. “Make yourself feel at home, sir.”


He certainly was a slender guy in his mid forties. Oh and that man loved to wear his expensive fedora hat. Definitely, I hate his darn smirk, there is no doubt about it. That very same obnoxious male even forgot to take it off once he took a seat at our table. Seriously, he kept that bastard looking smirk and his fedora hat the whole time!


Yes, I know. We both were already sitting there, doing pretty much nothing. No thing.


“How are ya doing, old man?” the little girl of the other day finally made a comeback without a previous notice.


Did that sudden appearance of hers mean that somehow she is related to that pesky Italian guy? I started worrying about that insolent possibility. Back then I even thought I would fall down sick of his stupid face and look. At some point she would look just like he did. Yeah, I am pretty sure about that. She will be quite ugly or even be extremely manly as a young adult. Poor kid! It got to be hard to deal with such a terrible destiny, he, he.


“There you are, again” I simply replied.


Something I forgot to tell you here is that I had not been visited by that punk girl for over a month. Make it two months, yeah. You bet I was feeling fine the whole time and even spent some precious time with that viperous Amelia. We did some really good adult stuff together. Really wonderful.


Then one day that hissy girl left me behind just because. I tried to get some answers from her to no avail. Not that I would get surprised by her weird reaction at all. It is just that I felt as if there was something amiss. That something got to be some other person. What else could it be otherwise?


“So you two finally meet!” the kid asserted. “It seriously took you a long time, oldtimer. Ha, ha!”


Wait a second! Did that mean I was right the whole darn time about my weird suspicions!?


“Hey! Stop looking at me as a confused dog!” the irreverent girl commanded. “You were the one that wanted to meet either my parents or my tutor. Remember? Do ya?”


“Err, yeah, but it’s been two months or even more since you broke into my apartment!” I quickly complained after listening to her pitchy tone of voice.


“So what, man?” she then responded. “It doesn’t matter even a little bit if I came back one or two days after the deadline. Don’t be such a grumpy old guy now!”


“How dare you say that it just took you a couple of days to ever return along with your… relative?” I questioned her in total disbelief.


“Oh my… Please leave the rapazza alone!” the Italian guy begged of me. “So what do you think about your new door lock? Isn’t it sturdy? I surely bet it is!”


“Huh? You mean the one I’d never ask you to ever replace?” I answered with another question.


“Hold your horses! There’s no reason why you should be overreacting now, officer Rockwell!” the alleged mafioso asserted. “I was just doing you a favor. Knowing my dear Julia, she gotta have forgotten to replace it after the previous tenant left the place a couple of months earlier.”


“I see” your servitor commented. “And tell me who are you? Melanie hasn’t told anything about you. Actually, she kept changing the subject every single time she could.”


“Me? I’m nobody or if you prefer it, her self appointed foster father out of mere compassion” he expounded. “Well, you might also like to know I’m Julia’s elder brother.”


“So you’re not her father at all and Julia isn’t her mother either” I recapitulated at once. “Then where are her parents? At least her mother gotta be somewhere…”


“Oh well, I didn’t want to reveal too much information about our dear family but who cares, right?” the gangster said. “She’s her aunt and that would make me her uncle.”